The Flock Before
by Evern in flames
Summary: What happened to the Flock before Angel Experiment. This is my first story, so please read then review, thanks.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

The smell of disinfectant, chemicals and death woke me up. I had somehow fallen asleep curled up with my back to the wire mesh of the cage door and my thin nightgown didn't stop it from being pressed into me, so I probably had that design covering my back.

I was in a medium size dog crate, being upsized last year had been a nice change and I was so far from normal that I didn't even care that a bigger dog cage wasn't something to be happy over.

I am a 10 year old girl, I have three brothers and two sisters, and only 98% of my genes are human. My name was Maximum or Max, but the scientists or white coats that did the experiments on me and my family called me specimen 1. The other 2% of my genes were bird, so yes I had wings, and other bird things, like air sacs and hollow bones.

The rest of my family had the same gene percentage but we were not actually related by blood. Well Angel and Gazzy were, but me, Fang, Iggy, and Nudge didn't know any of our real family. That didn't matter though because we had gone through so many horrible experiences that nothing could break our bond. We were the flock.

I heard the quiet squeak of shoes as they moved across the hard linoleum, and I pressed myself against the mess, if I had thought for one moment that they were coming for me I would've pressed myself far against the back of the cage, but I knew they weren't because, I could sense Fang, and hear his moaning.

I was the leader of the Flock and all of my family looked for me for help, but Fang was my right hand man and he never showed emotion, I figured it was his way of not completely losing it, but his moaning meant he was in immense pain.

The crate next to me was opened, and the limp Fang was laid inside, I went over to him and stuck my hand through the narrow gap between the cages and I put my hand on his brow, waiting for a reaction.

"Hey," he said weakly, he hated to be touched without permission, but he did take my hand in his.

"What happened?" I asked

"Injections," he slurred and I knew what he meant. Last week had been my turn for this treatment, they put almost twenty different kinds of viruses into our body, that attacked the inside of us, and they waited to see how it affected us, it was extremely painful though and I had thrown up for days.

"Max" Iggy cried from across the hall, his crate, which he shared with baby Angel was across from mine, and next to that was the crate that held Nudge and Gazzy. He wanted to know how Fang was.

"He will be better soon," I said, "he will survive."

But in my heart I knew that even through Fang would survive, and the next experiments we would be able to live through, by the end of the year we would all be dead. I didn't know if it would be from a disease, starvation, a new experiment or if they just got bored and released us to the Erasers like they did with those poor chimps that we heard every night.

"No, Max," Angel said from her crate, she could read minds and even though she probably hadn't understood half of what I had thought, she had got the drift.

"Relax honey." I soothed "Iggy please help her go back asleep."

"Ok Max," he said and he started murmuring to her.

Every time something happened to one of the Flock I felt it was my fault, even through I knew that was irrational, but Iggy was the one I felt the worst about. Almost a month ago, the white coats had taken him away and when he had come back he had been blind, they wanted to give him better sight, but oops, they had made a tiny mistake and now Iggy would have to live with it for the rest of his life.

He never complained, and I doubted he ever would, but my heart still ached when ever I saw his clouded over eyes.

"Hi Max" someone said outside the cage. I looked out and saw Ari. Ari was Jeb's son and he was seven. Jeb was a white coat and he was the only one who was nice to us. He never did any experiments and sometimes gave us candy. Ari had grow up in the School, the name of the lab we lived in, and he always followed me around, in the annoying seven year old way.

"I have something for you" he said stuffing some sort of pastry through my cage with some candy.

"Thanks." I said smiling at him, making his face light up, but then he frowned when I gave the pastry mess to fang and threw the candy skillfully across the hall to the rest of the flock.

"Oh, I also made you this," he muttered, now not as happy, it was a crude handmade pot. "I'll leave it out here though." he said

"Well thanks," I muttered, now getting annoyed, I needed to check on Fang more.

Luckily now Jeb came into the room. "Ari leave Max alone" he called. Ari turned at his father and frowned, but he left obediently. Jeb walked over to my cage and bent down, he smiled in at me, and I smiled back. He started to open the cage and I quickly scooted back even though I had been moving foreword slowly.

I glared at him, and squeezed Fang's hand in fear. Only people who were about to do experiments ever took us out, was I really about to loose one of the only people I trusted.

"Leave her alone." Fang hissed but the obvious pain in his voice made the threat a little less menacing.

Jeb frowned. "I would never hurt any of you," he said and I relaxed, but I was still curious about why he was taking me out. "I need to talk." He said, answering my unspoken question. Then he reached in, letting go of Fangs hand I crawled out and took Jeb's hand. I looked up, my eyes full of trust.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Even though Jeb had said he wanted to talk he didn't start right away. Instead he quickly led me down a hallway I had never been down before. Every time he went to a cross hall he looked around, like he was doing something wrong, but I had to be imagining it because Jeb was a white coat and he couldn't break his own rules. Could he?

At the end of on hall there was an empty room and Jeb pushed me inside. My mouth started watering immediately because there was a ton of food laying on the table, without waiting for Jeb's permission I started instantly stuffing my face, putting all the stuff that wouldn't make a complete mess away so I could latter give it to my family.

Jeb sat down across from me and looked at me seriously. "I'm going to talk and you're going to listen, then do everything I tell you to do. If either you or anyone in your family makes a mistake then you will all die."

I froze and opened my full mouth to respond, but Jeb shook his head. "there is not enough time, you cant interrupt." I nodded and he continued.

"Our boss is getting upset because nothing more unusual is happening with you guys and he wants to move on to bigger and better experiments. I have tried to talk to him and tell him that you guys are as far as we can get right now but he wont listen. He plans to see how long it takes for the Erasers to kill you at dusk, then start on something new. I wont let you be killed though," he said hurriedly at my horrified face. "so tomorrow I will get you guys out. We have 10 more minutes and I will tell you how I plan to do it, memorize it and tell the Flock, then you all might survive."

Jeb talked for the next 10 minutes like he had said and I listened intently, while stuffing my face. When he was done, I took all the food I could carry and stuffed more in a pocket created by my wings. Jeb this time took my arm, because my hands were filled with food and led my quickly back to the room with the cages. I then passed out all the food to my excited flock and climbed into the cage that Jeb held the door open to.

"Good luck, sweetheart" he said, locking the door behind me. Then he left without looking back.

All the flock dug into their food so I planed to wait till they were done to tell them what was wrong, but Fang caught onto my tense mood.

"What was that about?" he asked in a hushed voice, which I appreciated, because it meant that I could tell him without worrying the rest of the Flock.

I quickly told Fang everything, the rest of the Flock would only be told what to do, not the whole you fail and die thing. Fang ate while I talked and he agreed on my plan to not tell the rest, but he still looked worried and sick.

They finished fast in case white coats came in, then they all looked at me expectantly. I couldn't tell them out loud because anyone could come in at any time but since we had been here for years we had developed a technique of talking with our hands and everyone understood the entire plan just after an hour of me going over it.

Dusk didn't come fast enough, but in some ways it had. In one hand we were about to escape, but on the other hand we could all possibly die. I had a feeling though that if worse come to worse, I could distract the white coats and Erasers long enough to let the rest of the Flock escape, even though I would die.

Fang was just about to throw up and was sweating at the bottom of his cage in a painful heap when the white coats came in, and not too gently threw all the cages on the cart. I really hoped he would be ok, I knew he would try as hard as the rest of the Flock but no one was going to be left behind.

The cart was harshly wheeled outside and if I hadn't kept still at the center of the crate I would've tumbled off. The place where we were brought was definitely the place the chimps were hunted. It was a side yard that was fenced in. Three big hairy men, the Erasers were left, while the white coats went inside. I felt a little mad because three, really, we were better then that, we were stronger then average adults, hadn't they done enough testing to realize that.

The Erasers, grinning wickedly opened all of our cages, doing mine last. Just like was planned we huddled in the back, pretending we were terrified, well maybe we weren't pretending. When the Erasers leaned over to take us out we were ready to begin.

"NOW!" I yelled, and all of us pushed out from the back of the crate and into the Erasers face. We were designed to fly so we had a lot of momentum. That and the fact that it was completely unexpected, pushed the Erasers back and vaulted us over them.

"RUN!" I screamed, and Iggy, handing me Angel and taking hold of Gazzy's hand didn't slow us down at all.

The Erasers were right behind us though and I knew that if Jeb had lied, then we were dead. He hadn't though and the hole in the fence was exactly were I was told it would be. We shimmied under it just as the alarm went off and we set off again into the woods.

Jeb had told me where he was going to meet us in the car, but in the woods was when we came across a major problem.


End file.
